International Business Machines Corporation

Vernon Walter Miller

Bruce McNutt

Robert H Bell, Jr

Octavian Florin Herescu

Michael D Roll

Jose Raul Escalera

Joshua Douglas Martin

Shawn Michael Nave

Richard Albert Welp

Yan Xu

Sergio Reyes

Olga Yiparaki

Eduardo Campos Peiro

Justin Thomson Miller

James Russell Thompson

Lee Charles LaFrese

Patrick J Byrne

Josu Diaz De Arcaya

Lee Charles La Frese

James Wormwell

Embodiments for managing unequal workloads between Network Shared Disks (NSD) in a networked computing environment by a processor. Additional space may be carved out from at least one of a plurality of NSDs in a cluster file system, upon detecting an unbalanced load between the plurality of NSDs, while maintaining a predetermined level of usage according to a performance profile of the plurality of NSDs.

Managing unequal network shared disks (NSD) in a computer network

A computer-implemented method according to one embodiment includes identifying aggregated customer performance data for a system resource, creating a first system map for the system resource, utilizing the aggregated customer performance data, comparing the first system map to a second system map created for the system resource utilizing calibration data, and adjusting the second system map, based on the comparing.

Storage system performance models based on empirical component utilization

According to one embodiment, a computer-implemented method includes obtaining, during a measurement period, a set of utilization metrics for a system; determining, whether the average number of outstanding system requests of the system lies between a current and an actual value of the maximum concurrency; in response to determining that the average number of outstanding system requests of the system does not lie between the current and actual values of the maximum concurrency, not adjusting the maximum concurrency value; in response to determining that the average number of outstanding system requests of the system does lie between the current and actual values of the maximum concurrency, assigning a value of the maximum concurrency to be the value of the average number of outstanding system requests; accessing a utilization function; solving the utilization function; and managing performance problems of the system indicated by solving the utilization function.

Maintaining manageable utilization in a system to prevent excessive queuing of system requests

A computer-implemented mechanism is provided that monitors usage of one or more computing resources within a set of computing components relative to a received workload. The mechanism calculates a maximum workload for the set of computing components from the monitored use of the computing resources within the set of computing components and determines an available overhead between the calculated maximum workload for the set of computing components and a current workload being performed by the set of computing components. The mechanism selects one or more maintenance tasks for the set of computing components, the total workload of the selected maintenance tasks being less than the determined available overhead.

Selection of maintenance tasks

In one embodiment, a system includes a controller for controlling a robotic accessor, and a memory in communication with and/or integrated with the controller for storing information about media and storage slots. The information includes data corresponding to a physical distribution of the media in the storage slots. Logic integrated with and/or executable by the controller is configured to position the robotic accessor at a computed optimal position during an idle period of the robotic accessor, the computed optimal position being based at least in part on at least one of: (a) the data corresponding to the physical distribution of the media in the storage slots, and (b) a center of access calculated using the data corresponding to the physical distribution of the media in the storage slots.

Optimally positioning an idle robotic accessor in a tape library

A mechanism is provided in a cache subsystem for cache prefetching based on non-sequential access. The mechanism determines frequently accessed non-sequential cache records in the cache subsystem. The mechanism collects trailing record statistics for the frequently accessed non-sequential cache records. The mechanism determines a caching strategy. The caching strategy comprises prefetching a set of trailing records responsive to a read of a given frequently accessed non-sequential cache record. The mechanism applies the caching strategy to the cache subsystem.

Cache prefetching based on non-sequential lagging cache affinity

In one embodiment, a system includes a robotic accessor for transporting media between multiple storage slots and one or more data storage drives; a controller for controlling the robotic accessor; a memory in communication with and/or integrated with the controller for storing information about the media and the storage slots, the information including data corresponding to a physical distribution of the media in the storage slots; and logic integrated with and/or executable by the controller, the logic being adapted to: position the robotic accessor at a computed optimal position during an idle period of the robotic accessor, the computed optimal position being based at least in part on the physical distribution of the media in the storage slots.

Apparatus, system, and method for optimally positioning an idle robotic accessor in a tape library

A mechanism for selectively disabling and enabling read caching based on past performance of the cache and current read/write requests. The system improves overall performance by using an autonomic algorithm to disable read caching for regions of backend disk storage (i.e., the backstore) that have had historically low cache hit ratios. The result is that more cache becomes available for workloads with larger hit ratios, and less time and machine cycles are spent searching the cache for data that is unlikely to be there.

Method for selectively enabling and disabling read caching in a storage subsystem

A processor blade determines whether a selected processing task is to be off-loaded to a storage blade for processing. The selected processing task is off-loaded to the storage blade via a planar bus communication path, in response to determining that the selected processing task is to be off-loaded to the storage blade. The off-loaded selected processing task is processed in the storage blade. The storage blade communicates the results of the processing of the off-loaded selected processing task to the processor blade.

Off-loading of processing from a processor blade to storage blades based on processing activity, availability of cache, and other status indicators

Off-loading of processing from a processor blade to storage blades

An apparatus, system and method to optimize load distribution across logical and physical resources in a storage system. An apparatus in accordance with the invention may include an availability module and an allocation module. The availability module may dynamically assign values to resources in a hierarchical tree structure. Each value may correspond to an availability parameter such as allocated volumes, current resource utilization, and historic resource utilization. The allocation module may serially process the values and allocate a load to a least busy resource in the hierarchical tree structure based on the assigned values.

System and method for identifying least busy resources in a storage system using values assigned in a hierarchical tree structure

A method to manage power in a computing device comprising a controller assembly and a storage assembly comprising a plurality of data storage devices, by selecting a processor parameter, establishing a threshold processor parameter value, establishing a threshold over-parameter time interval, selecting a data storage device parameter, and establishing a nominal data storage device parameter value. The method determines an actual processor parameter value. If the actual processor parameter value is less than or equal to the threshold processor parameter value, the method operates each of the plurality of data storage devices using the nominal data storage device parameter value. If the actual processor parameter value is greater than the threshold processor parameter value, then the method determines an actual over-parameter time interval. If the actual processor parameter value is greater than the threshold processor parameter value, and if the actual over-parameter time interval is greater than the threshold over-parameter time interval, then the method operates each of the plurality of data storage devices using a data storage device parameter value less than the nominal data storage device parameter value.

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Tucson, AZ, United States of America

Vernon Walter Miller